The invention relates to a method for determining the hydrogen content of a gas and more specifically the hydrogen content of a person's expiratory air, and also to an apparatus for putting this method into practice.
As is known the hydrogen content of a person's expiratory air corresponds with the hydrogen production in the intestinal lumen. It therefore is possible to detect an abnormal breakdown and/or malabsorbtion of carbohydrates by sampling the expiratory air regularly during a certain period and measuring the hydrogen content thereof. Thus the hydrogen content of the samples is determined. Until now, the method used to determine the hydrogen content in expiratory air is very cumbersome, requires expensive devices, such as a gaschromatograph which must be operated by qualified people, and takes several hours to obtain the final results of the measurements.